Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Remnant: From the Ashes

Great gunplay, unique enemy design, and a soundtrack with some boss music that slaps. But I am not a fan of the progression system. Gameplay is a constant skill and dps efficiency check, you cannot power-level to overcome difficult enemy encounters. Which is fine in co-op, but becomes quite the challenge in solo play. And I'm not a fan of the loot system either.

I finished the game using the same gear I began the game with.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus
(Note: I have yet to play the Gen IX Pokemon games - Scarlet/Violet - so this post ignores them)

This is, hands down, the most refreshing Pokemon game I've played in years. Sinnoh is one of my favorite regions in the series, and past Sinnoh Hisui is ripe with lore and potential. Gone are badges, with more of a focus on catching and researching Pokemon. The player can increase their Team Galaxy research team star rank by completing field research. People are just learning to accept and live with Pokemon and overcome their fears; this does play into the plot. No ultimate evil team here per se, but there is a calamity the player must help solve. Compared to the Wild Area in Sword/Shield, this truly feels like an open world Pokemon game. The catch mechanics and wild battles are pretty fun and addictive, finding items and using them for crafting is relatively easy and painless (I'm normally not a big crafting fan), and each area is fun to explore as you unlock more ways to traverse Hisui.

Probably my biggest issue - and one that did very little to hinder my enjoyment - is with the graphics. The overworld looks far from terrible, but this game has some pop-in and blurry textures until they properly render. This is mostly evident in wide open spaces. Trainer battles also aren't the best, but this is partly explained through the current setting and context; people are just learning to live with Pokemon, Pokeballs were just invented, and some are even scared of their terrifying power.

I'm far from done with the game; I want to finish as many requests as I care to, including the post-game main quest I've unlocked. I'd also like to complete the region's Pokedex (242 entries; I'm at 119 pages completed as of this writing) since it's possible without trading.

@Tyranexx If the graphics bother you, you may not like Scarlet/Violet .. it's more of an open world but significantly worse graphical issues. I enjoyed both, but Arceus is probably my overall favorite Pokemon game ever and S/V was fun but more significantly flawed.

Splatoon 3: Expansion Pass-Wave 2: Side Order
I just beat the Spire of Order for my first time, it was really fun. I am hoping to get a 100% run on this DLC!

Granblue Fantasy Relink (PS5).

This was really fun. Combat is very fast & slick (a lot of people compare it to Tales, but it honestly felt more Ys like to me, which I enjoyed because that's probably my favorite Action JRPG battle system).

The main story mode manages to feel just as exciting as FFXVI at it's best points, but without hardly any of the downtime or time consuming fetch quests holding it back, and this assuredly at a fraction of the budget. It's an all killer, no filler, 15-20 hour adventure you won't want to put down as you can't wait to see which wrinkle it'll add next (during battles on the deck of your airship you can man the cannons to shoot down foes before they board, there's a boss fight that calls to mind the kind of scale you'd expect from Shadow of the Colossus, even boss fights where you'll take control of the series' version of Bahumut & fight other massive beasts akin to FFXVI's showpiece Eikon battles, and more).

Now, it does seem to expect you to be somewhat already familiar with the cast (from the previous mobile game) as your party is already complete from the get go, and aside from a very brief moment in the prologue are never separated. This means that I never really got quite as invested in the group as other JRPG parties, as you really don't see them narratively grow as they normally would (also in part due to the fact that the big console game is the spin-off, it's a footnote in terms of the narrative of the franchise as a whole). That said they're a likeable enough group & I liked spending time with them. I'd levy similar thoughts to the story as a whole, as it hits all the cliches you'd expect to find but isn't as thematically rich as a Final Fantasy or Xenoblade Chronicles. However it's very wonderfully produced (the fantastic art direction goes a long way as well), and easily holds your attention for it's duration. If you do wish to learn more about a character's backstory, they each have "Fate Episodes" you unlock as you progress (most of these are text only affairs, but a few offer a playable segment) that brush you up on their history (and they give stat boosts upon reading/completing them, so you might as well).

Of course, if you really get into the gameplay loop the story mode is really only the opening salvo, as the real meat is in the extensive quest system (a few of these see you taking on waves of enemies under various conditions, but a good 90-95% of them are rematches against the game's many bosses with ever increasing difficulties). Easy & Normal rank quests are available during the main story, but once you clear the story mode you can work your way up through Hard, Very Hard, Extreme, Maniac, & Proud rank quests, where the grind really comes into play. There are about a million & one different ways to buff up your party (and heck, there are about a dozen different new party members to unlock as well, even though they're not story relevant), and while you don't have to explore these much to see story mode to the end, you'll need to get to grips with it all if you want to clear harder quests (at least clear them with good scores), and it can get pretty grindy when you need to start taking on certain quests multiple times in order to grind out drops. Seriously, each character has two seperate skill trees, one for offensive buffs/abilities, the other defensive, and each one is absolutely gargantuan (each one is just as large if not moreso than what you'd expect a character's entire skill tree to be in any other JRPG). Seriously, my main party members are all level 88-92 and yet each of their two skill trees I only have 60-70% complete. I haven't worked on anyone else (let alone the myriad of optional unlockable characters I mentioned), and that just accounts for one way you can power up characters (Fate Episode stat boosts. weapon crafting & upgrading, which BTW each have their own tiny skill tree. Sigils, which take the place of armor/accessories here, you can equip up to at least 10 and you can upgrade those as well). Heck, even once you do have a character's skill tree maxed out you can apparently still spend skill points on them to raise stats randomly (I'm not sure if there really is a hard cap on how strong a character can get).

I can definitely see the appeal in the grind, and I do enjoy it in doses, but I definitely enjoyed the exciting cinematic story mode moreso than the post game grind. It's important to note too, as completing story mode only puts story completion at 95%. You see, without getting into spoilers, there are few loose ends, and in order to tie them up and hit 100% story completion you are required to advance through Extreme rank quests (you'll slowly acquire lore notes as you grind your way up through the rankings, and along the way you'll unlock the last couple big cinematic story moments, the last of which is truly awesome). This leaves Maniac & Proud rank quests as truly the only optional ones if you really want to see the story to it's ultimate conclusion. It took me 20 hours to complete story mode, and a further 16 grinding my way up the quest ranks just to knock off that last 5% of the story. Definitely enjoyed the first half of the experience more, though it admittedly felt good seeing the story to it's true end.

@FishyS I'd say PLA's graphics only mildly bothered me. Not even close to ruining my enjoyment. I'm not a FPS or "everything needs to look pretty and in 4K" junkie. I was amused more than anything. Typically graphics don't bother me unless they cause a lot of other issues (game-breaking bugs, making progression hard by being too muddy/broken/etc.). I used to play World of Warcraft on my family's Windows XP and a shoddy internet connection at 10-15 frames back in the day. I had no clue games could look great until I finally had access to more powerful consoles than the GBA, DS, and SNES. XD

I'm aware of the graphical complaints of Sc/Vi. I suspect they will bother me a bit more, but I tend to evaluate the full package when I play a game. I've heard there's a very good game buried behind all the issues.

Completed Batman Arkham Asylum and it pains me that Arkham City is not on the cartridge Greed is terrible.

Finished up Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin last night. Farming sims are not my thing, but it looked interesting and wanted to give it a try. Almost stopped pretty quickly as found it boring, but glad I stuck it out. After I got through my second crop and the yields got bigger and better and I got stronger everything opened up and it really sucked me in. The final level and boss was a little disappointing as it was remarkably easy, but otherwise I really enjoyed it and would encourage people to at least give it a try even if it is not a genre you generally get into.

I recently 100%'d Sonic Adventure 2 Battle by getting an A-rank on every mission. T'was hard, very hard

I beat Megaman Zero 2.

I'll be honest, the last four 2D Megaman games I've played (11, 9, Zero 1, Zero 2, in that order) I've not been as into as I would've hoped. They're mostly good games (though Zero 1 has a lot of issues), but nothing on the level of Megaman 2-5 or X 1-3 imo. I do feel like I need to replay the former two at leas (especially 9).

But with Zero 2...its almost really great. But the ambition to add to the Megaman series rarely succeeds at doing so. It's at its best when its just a fun 2d Megaman game, but it wants to be a story and it wants to add these newer mechanics and...eh. I had to crawl back to the new checkpoint system again because of the one grapple ability over a couple of annoying segments, and the wildly inconsistent difficulty curve of the bosses.

I did enjoy going through the levels and it was nowhere near as bs as the first game, but outside of that, I'm failing to see the hype. It doesn't help that I just recently beat another Megaman sequel with a story focus that's significantly better at doing that in its own way. It's not like I didn't like the game but I both could easily see it being better than it is and fans made it think it would've been a bigger jump in quality from the first game.

100%ed Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch).

A bit anticlimactic as nothing happened after I finished the last Time Attack stage.

Thoroughly enjoyed the game though, and I'm happy to say that I've never consulted any walk-throughs, despite the borderline infuriating (and unfair) difficulty of a tiny minority of levels.

And I think I've played it for just a little over 20 hours in total.

Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara

A cute 3D platformer which I honestly fell in love with. It's not difficult, but it has enough challenge to keep you engaged and a super adorable (if zany) plot involving pirate recruitment challenges and fun characters. Each main level is on an island and you have to sail to the island to start. The actual sailing is fun and there are some cute ocean mini-games. You get both boat upgrades and navigational maps over time to open new areas.

Most of the levels are normal platformers with some hidden collectables and an optional time challenge. Normally you have to play each level at least twice to go for speed versus collection/exploration. There are also a couple different types of race levels and some simple bosses, usually with adjacent cut scenes. There are no normal enemies, just environmemtal hazards. Your only real controls are run, jump, ground pound, and.... a fast/big jump thing which is sort of like a Mario triple jump but requires p-speed and can be chained in some circumstances. A lot of the levels have very interesting speed strats and I generally found myself optimizing to get times far below the goal.

Personally I thought the art was charming. And for a somewhat retro style I was surprised how much of the scenery you could climb on... not that it was useful, but you could do it!

I spent pretty much exactly 10 hours on the game. It takes a rare game to both make me really want to 100% it and make that process both fun and not frustrating or repetitive. Overall just an enjoyable experience which will stick with me.

Solid 8/10 game.

Here are the games I beat, while I was away. At least the ones I can remember.

Super Mario RPG: Really enjoyed that one. Simple and fun Mario goodness, with rpg mechanics. If this is what the original was like, it still holds up very well. This game made me a Geno fan, what a cool guy.

Bud Spencer & Terence Hill- Slaps And Beans 2: Solid fun. Another simple game. I think it is easier, than the last one. The story is bananas and the dialogue is funny.

The Smurfs 2 The Prisoner Of The Green Stone: Kinda liked it, kinda not. It is solid, but it feels very repetitive very fast and is simply too long. And the tone of the game is off. They should aim for the original cartoons mood, classic.

Gravity Circuit: Cool game. It is fun and I like the music.

Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Pretty fun game, which I 100% completed, but please do not make Donkey Kong an evil guy. He is cool. The real ending was cute.

Earthbound: Too weird for me and it could have been shorter, but I kinda liked it anyway. Many of the calm and serious tracks are very soothing.

Super Mario Land 2 The Six Golden Coins: Solid Platforming fun.

Another Code Recollection: The first game is fine. I think I loved the second game. The ending was really touching and I felt like crying a little bit. A game to feel and to enjoy the atmosphere.

Holy Magic Century: A simple and very charming game. I love the tone of innocence, this game has. Surprisingly challenging, but maxing the water elemental level first and earth afterwards, made it fairly manageable.

Loopers
A visual novel from publisher Prototype. The story begins fairly well. It's another spin on the Groundhog's Day theme, one person (or in this case multiple individuals) experience the same day, over and over again. You cannot die, you have near-unlimited funds, and you have unlimited time to do whatever.

Typically, people who experience this loop have done wrong, somewhere or somehow. So doing something different than you did previously, righting the wrong, is how you escape. Unfortunately, the story and characters here in Loopers can't follow their own rules.

"Once a person goes berserk they go into a coma." But the MC managed to wake one of the people who was in a coma. Huh?! Basically, the story unravels and degrades into "love conquers everything".

I think I threw up in my mouth a little. Very disappointing. A bottom-tier visual novel in my estimate. The Code;Realize series does the "love conquers everything" trope better.

5/10

I have just rolled the credits for Resident Evil 2 on the N64 with Leon (scenario A).

And ofc I am starting Claire Scenario B

First time beating RE2 Original and I loved the experience!

AND it is my very first game beaten on the N64

Forgot to mention, I also finished Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass. The new courses are really nice and I like the Tour courses too.

Finally beat Resident Evil 2 (N64) B scenario as well! What an awesome game!!!

Unicorn Overlord. I really enjoyed the combat systems, especially when the AI tries to bait you. I'm mostly grinding units at this point.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder
My second playthrough. Still a great game, for mostly relaxed fun. Incredible how many people work on a 2D platformer nowadays. It was worth it.

I beat all of Mario Wonder, except for the last section of the final final challenge. God that invisibility badge sucks.

I beat FFVII (1997 version.) After all the hype around Rebirth I felt like revisiting this. It's a good time. When I played it in the 90's I got all the way to Sephiroth's final form and wasn't able to beat it, but this time I didn't have much trouble with it.